It All Started With Duck Pajamas
by it'scurtainsforyou
Summary: Kitty's dealing with hard times. John's back and as assholish as ever. What happens after one late night dare to raid her panty drawer? Kyro, Romy. Hope you like it!
1. Indoor Living

**[It All Started With Duck Pajamas...]**

"You," she declared as she turned a page in her French book, "are the most idiotic girl in the entire world."

Her roommate just sighed, staring at the ceiling with a dreamy smile spread wide across her lightly tanned face. She rolled her dark eyes from behind the rectangular black framed glasses she wore and shook her head slightly, sighing for a very different reason than her love-stricken roommate. She ran a hand through her sandy brown (blond?) hair, making pieces fall out of the messy bun she had previously put it in to study.

"I mean it, Rogue. What's so absolutely lovely about this guy that makes you so love-sick?" she demanded, honestly wondering why Rogue, one of the only girls she'd ever come to know who agreed with her on the opinion that teenage love was pretty stupid, had suddenly turned into a lovey-dovey, love-sick puppy when some new guycame onto the scene of Xavier's.

"He's just so..." Rogue struggled to find the right word, dark hair sprawled out against the quilt of her bed. Rogue thought hard for a minute and she stared at her blankly, waiting for her to actually say something meaningful, something that had been a rare occurrence in the past week since. Rogue gave up her struggle and just sighed, making her roll eyes again, scoffing and then continuing to copy down verbs in simple future tense. Damn, she hated AP French.

"You are the most idiotic girl in the entire world," she repeated. It was useless. It was almost eight, and she didn't understand half of what she was writing anyways. She gave a frustrated sigh, rosy lips pouting slightly as she gave up on any hopes of getting her French homework done that night, and re-set her alarm so that she'd have time to hopefully figure it out in the morning, though she doubted that she would. She just wasn't in the mood for anything that night.

"I know, Kitty. But can you really blame me?" Rogue pleaded. "Look at him!" she said, even though the guy was nowhere to be seen, considering he was probably in his own room on the other side of the dorms. "I can't help but love him! He's hot, he's sexy, and he's _Southern_!"

Kitty mentally groaned and swore that if Rogue had been standing up, the girl probably would have swooned and collapsed, her words so exaggerated that it made her sort of want to puke. "Could a girl want anything else?" Rogue sighed dreamily as she got up from the bed and stripped out of the large gray hoodie she'd been wearing, which had 'Mississippi printing across it in big letters. She replaced it with a cute, long-sleeved red top that would make Logan, her guardian, go absolutely nuts, because he'd had have to beat the boys off with a stick, or more likely, his adamantium-based fists.

The thought of an over-protective Logan made Kitty's heart clench. Her father was over-protective...

"You comin', Kitty?" Rogue drawled as she applied a cherry red gloss to her lips that matched the color of her top. Kitty shook her head.

"No thanks," she said, declining calmly. "I'd rather just stay in. I'm pretty tired. First day Xavier's is always draining, you know?"

"Alright. Holla if you need anything," Rogue said, shrugging. Kitty fiddled with the strings coming out of her distressed denim skirt. "Y'all don't know what'chour missin', sugar!" With that last comment, Rogue exitted, leaving the door open a crack because she'd lost her key and because Kitty could sleep through anything, and therefore probably wouldn't wake up whenever she came back from the party to let her back in.

Kitty sighed and stared up at the ceiling. She and Rogue had painted it like the night sky their first year together as roommates, way back, before the invasion and before Jean died at Alkali Lake and before Jean died...again, at Alcatraz. So much had happened since she became friends with Rogue all those years ago when she showed up with Logan, and not all that had happened centered around just Rogue and Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning alone.

Kitty hadn't told anyone about what had happened during her summer. When she came back to Xavier's earlier than usual, people wondered what happened, but were kind enough to know that Kitty would inform them when she was ready. The most information anyone knew was that she'd gone home to Chicago when school ended in June and that she was back barely four weeks later, pretty much begging the Professor for work. She'd worked the summer away, from July to August; weeding gardens, helping teachers with class plans, practicing in the Danger Room. By the time came around for the new school year, everyone had noticed that Kitty was different. She didn't laugh half as much as she used to, and she seemed to zone out a lot. She was more temperamental, and her opinions had changed drastically. No longer did she find herself obsessed with Piotr or fascinated by Bobby. Now, she thought of love as a teenager as something stupid, as something not to waste her time on.

Everyone knew something was up, it was no secret. At lunch that day, she'd heard the smaller kids whisper and place bets on what it could be; bad break-up, jail, drugs. It made her smile, and in a sicked and twisted sort of way, she kind of admired the smaller children for being somewhat honest by not being sneaky enough to keep their whispers unknown. Kitty sighed again. It had only been the first day of the new school year. The smaller kids were bound to ask her what was wrong soon. After all, she could only keep her personality change hidden for so long when she was a favorite in the X-men Team among the younger generation.

Kitty turned to rest on her side, arms bent and hands resting in front of her face, off to the side. She stared at the photo that sat on her nightstand, glaring into the smiling cobalt eyes of her father. She was four-years-old, sitting on his shoulders with her head on his, smiling from ear to ear. He was wearing his uniform, dark blue making his eyes stand out and clashing against the pink shorts she wore in the picture. She put the picture face down on the table and closed her eyes.

_He promised..._

* * *

_"Shhh!" _someone hissed, sneaking into the room. Kitty didn't move, and kept her eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep as she tried to figure out what was going on.

_"I cannot believe I'm doing this!" _another voice whined. She barely recognized it, and it took her several seconds to realize that it was Bobby's. It was different, probably deeper. Logan would probably cry from joy. It seemed that Bobby had testosterone, after all. Kitty snoozed back into subconsciousness again, until she heard footsteps.

_"Well, we are. Now come on, help me figure out which drawer it is!"_the other voice ordered, and she struggled to remember it. It sounded so familiar, but so... not, at the same time. It was hard to pinpoint the owner, and sleep was fighting for dominance over her. She sighed deeply before settling again. It was probably just a strange dream, anyway. People were awake and about now. There was no way that Xavier's was being invaded again without anyone noticing. And besides, if there were military ops invading the school again, they would be using S.W.A.T hand signals, or something like that, not whispering like James Bond wanna-bes.

_"Jackpot! Panty drawer!" _the voice that didn't remind her of Bobby cajoled. That statement made her realize that this was not a dream. Her eyes snapped open and she leaped off the bed, years of training from Logan in the Danger Room making her leap into attack mode almost instantly. She tackled the tresspassers and flipped on the light switch with her foot, her petite 5'3 frame sprawled over two obviously far larger ones. She was instantly flipped over, and she phased through the floor, grabbing one foot and taking the invader with her to the game room below.

"Bobby?" she said, still somewhat sleepy despite the adrenaline high. He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head.

"Hey, Kitty," he said, dragging out the 'hey'. She regarded him skeptically.

"What the heck were you doing in my room?" she asked, blinking and then standing up, stretching. "And who else was there?"

"Well, you see," Bobby said, laughing again nervously. "It's the big Back to Xavier's bash, as per annual tradition and-"

"Bobby, cut to the chase."

"JohnisbackandweweresortofdaredbyBlinktosneakintoyourroomandstealyourunderwearandshowittoalltheguysinthewestwingbathroom!" Bobby rushed. It took Kitty a second to figure out what he said, but slowly it clicked.

John + dare + her underwear + all the guys in the west wing bathroom.

Oh, _hell _no!

Kitty sprinted towards the west wing, ignoring the slight sting of her ankle, which she landed on wrong thanks to the added weight of Bobby Drake, aka, Iceman, aka, one of her best guy friends who was so going to get an ass-whooping once she maimed John and got her panties back.

* * *

She found him running down the hallway, hands clutching fabric that didn't belong to anything he was wearing. He ran through her, smirking at her, before he sprinted down the stairs. She raced after him, annoyed and tired and blushing at the fact that he held her underwear like he had every right to. Why the Professor even let John, aka Pyro, back into the school, was beyond her. Everyone had been against the idea, even her, back when she was forgiving and nice and thought the best of everyone. John Allerdyce had betrayed them all, joining Magneto's ranks and leaving his friends behind for a man who told him that he was a god among insects. No one was happy with what he'd done; it was a miracle that anyone tolerated him. But Bobby, out of all people, stuck by him, and thus, Xavier's was steadily getting used to his presence again as the school prankster and bad-ass.

"Come on, Kitten," he taunted, "you can run faster than that." His smirk made her anger flare. He'd been cocky before he left, but it had never bothered her because she never really spent any time with him. She'd always been too interested in Piotr or Bobby to pay any attention to John. Besides, he had 'bad news' written all over him, and Kitty did not enjoy bad news.

She scampered down the hall after him, and it was at times like these that she wished she hadn't fallen asleep wearing a denim mini-skirt and that she wasn't so short. The current situation was the perfect example as to why she hated PE as a kid. Dodge-ball had been hell before her mutation kicked in...

John was stupid, she found. He was stupid because he was yanking doors open left and right to put up a barrier so that she'd have a more difficult time catching him. Obviously, he'd forgotten her mutation at the moment, and his actions only slowed him down and made her job a lot less difficult. She phased right through everything, and sprinted the last few feet. She was going to catch him! She was going to catch him and take her underwear back and-

And she ran right through the door of the west wing boys bathroom to find every boy above grade seven standing there as John held her undies high in the air. There was utter silence, most of the boys totally ignorant to her presence in the room and staring at the treasure John held. One boy fainted. Kitty rolled her eyes and then looked up, seeing if John had gotten her really risky ones or if they were just her everyday ones. Then she grinned like a cat who got the cream, because John Allerdyce was a fool.

"Dude, those are shorts!" one guy called out. Murmurs went throughout the room and Kitty stood there, smug, as she sent John a look. He glared at her and then looked at what he held.

"Yeah! With rubber ducks on them!" another guy added. "Dude! You grabbed _pajamas_! What the hell?!"

"Bravo," Kitty mused, arms crossed over her torso as she looked up with John, smug grin so wide it made her face ache before she turned around and phased right through the door, the guys just realizing that she was in the room. She made her way back to her room calmly, walking softly but quickly, as always. John opened the door and glared at her back(side...).

"This isn't over, Kitten!" John hollered at her, because no one made a fool of John Allerdyce and got away with it.

"Whatever," she said, smirking back at him as she rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.


	2. Mary Without Sound

**[It All Started With Duck Pajamas...]**

John watched her, well, more like glared at her, as he sat at his official lunch table. Bobby sat to his right, and a few younger boys crowded around the table that lurked in the corner, giving him the perfect cover to study her without a high probability of being noticed. She had just gotten out of the lunch line, where a freshman boy stared at her with a pure admiration she failed to notice (or chose to ignore). She wove through the mess of tables and chairs even though she could phase through, her hips and legs moving rapidly to avoid people, chairs, and the edges of tables in an oddly graceful way. She didn't hit a single one as she turned and swerved her way to her own lunch table, the most crowded out of them all; the flowy top she wore gave the impression that she was a dancer in a show rather than a girl in a lunch room. That girl named Rogue pulled out a chair for her and Kitty sat down in it, smiling at her friend in thanks and saying something quickly that John couldn't quite catch by just lip-reading before she opened her can of ice tea. Jubilation said something, waving her arms around in a way that gave John the impression that she was declaring independence from Great Britain. The table burst into a fit of laughter he could hear through all the noise, and when he tried hard enough, he could pick out Kitty's laugh from them all as he watched her clutching her sides and trying to stay on her chair. After a day of studying her during the classes they shared, he noted that she was a different person entirely when she was alone. With her friends, she was like she'd been before: happy, smiling, somewhat confused but at the same time witty. When she was alone, she was quiet, and when she did speak, it was witty or sarcastic. She'd never really been a bitch, and she'd never really had this smart-ass type of humor that she did now. He wondered what made her change. The mainstream rumor was an abusive relationship with a boyfriend back in the Windy City, but for some reason, John could tell it wasn't that. Nope, it was something different, something closer to home that hit harder than an abusive bastard ever could. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

"Who are you staring at, Allerdyce?" Blink asked, eyebrow raised as he stared at John through the thick glass of the ebony frames he wore. John shook his head, snapping out of his predatory study session.

He was supposed to be studying so he could learn the easiest and yet most brutal way to get revenge. Wondering why she wasn't like she used to be was irrelevant.

"No one," he stated nonchalantly, and took a sip of the beer he'd stolen from Logan's stash. Bobby looked at him from the corner of his eyes, but didn't say anything. He probably saw who he was staring at and knew that he was up to something. No matter. Like Iceman would do anything, John thought. The guy had a stick _so_ far up his ass.

"Really?" Blink snorted, smirking at the fire-controlling mutant. John looked at him boredly, bleached hair falling into his face. They regarded each other silently, and then Blink just kept his smirk and went back to eating.

He knew John Allerdyce was up to something, but hell if he was going to get in the way.

* * *

"Okay," Kitty said as she stood in front of the sixth grade Earth Sciences class. "Can anyone tell me the layers of the earth?"

She stood there as kids gradually started to raise their hands as they read through the paper she had handed out a few minutes prior. She really didn't know why she offered to help out and teach a class. Well, maybe it was the fact that it was work and that, when she asked for it that summer, she was desperate for work. Plus, on a good side, she was helping out Storm, who'd been swamped with work since Jean died. Besides, Kitty was seventeen and a few months away from her GED. She was in AP Chemistry for God's sake. She was certainly able to teach the basis of all human life on a sixth grade level.

At least that's what she kept telling herself as the class seemed to get longer by the minute and she remembered that she had probably put too much stuff in her class plan for the day.

"Okay, Travis," she said, nodding to a tanned skinned boy with a golden eyes. He cleared his throat even though his voice cracked from time to time anyway as he stated the answer. "The crust, lithosphere, Mohorovicic discontinuity, asthenosphere, upper mantel, lower mantel, liquid iron core, solid iron core."

"Very good Travis," Kitty smiled at the younger boy and then tossed him a Jolly Rancher, her 'positive reenfourcement' to keep the kids awake and paying attention. He grinned back and popped the candy into his mouth, showing his fangs slightly when he opened his mouth. One girl next to him smiled at him dreamily. It almost made Kitty laugh out loud. Travis, the tanner version of Edward Cullen. That was he was known for. The fact that his slight feral mutation had a little kick of hypnotic charm did not help him fight the title, either.

"Ms. Pryde? There's someone at the door," Katie said, looking at the door. Kitty saw the shadow of feet at the bottom of the door and walked across the room, trying to shake how weird it was that these kids called her Ms. Pryde. It just felt so awkward.

"Thanks, Katie. Oh yeah, new rule. You all call me Kitty, okay? Ms. Pryde just feel too weird," she said, laughing. The kids grinned back at her and she opened the door.

_Swoosh._

_Splash._

_Shriek._

"Looks like someone shouldn't have worn white today," John said, smirking as Kitty's lacy blue bra showed easily through her now drenched white top. "Though I have to say, Kitten. You'd probably win at a wet T-shirt contest."

Ignoring the perverted compliment, she glared at him, ready to claw his eyes out while rocked back on his heels, whistling and smiling at her like he was acting totally innocent when he knew he was anything but. She stood there, dripping wet, just waiting to pounce. A second passed, and the bell rang. Saved by the bell, the class watched in absolute awe as she tackled him to the floor with a shriek of outrage, then grabbed his ankle and phased them both through the floor and out of sight.

* * *

"Kitty, you have a lot of explaining to do," Storm declared as she stood to the side of the Proffesor's desk. The Professor also looked less than pleased. Kitty sat on one of the couches, wearing Storm's jacket to cover herself, and John leaned against a book case, sometimes looking around boredly at the titles.

"What about him?!" Kitty practically shouted, gesturing her thumb to the asshole now reading _Catcher in the Rye_ with an uninterested expression on his face, as if he had better things to do than get into trouble. Please, Kitty scoffed in her head, John's life was trouble. He couldn't exist without causing trouble. Causing trouble was all he ever seemed to be good for, other than setting things on fire.

Which, for the most part, usually lead to trouble, which only proved her point further.

"Oh, trust me," Storm said icily, looking at John, "he'll get his a minute. First, you explain."

"Why me?!"

"Because I _thought _you were the mature one out of the two," Storm said, hinting that she doubted it now with the way Kitty was acting. Kitty sighed and ran a hand through her (still soaking!) hair before she started.

"Well, last night was the big Back to Xavier's party, you know?" she said, and Storm nodded. The Professor looked at her kindly even though she knew she was in big trouble. "Well, apparently, Blink dared Bobby and John to steal a pair of my underwear and show it to all of the boys down in the west wing bathroom..."

"You snuck into her room?!" Storm demanded suddenly, keeping true to her ever-changing attitude and looking at John. He just shrugged.

"It was a dare," he stated matter-o-factly. Kitty fumed at him but continued.

"Anyway. Bobby and John came into my room and attempted to steal a pair of my underwear. I'd been sleeping but I managed to tackle Bobby and phase him to the first floor. He told me that John at my underwear and was heading to the west wing bathroom, so naturally, I pretty much spazzed and ran after him. I chased him down through the west wing and almost had him but then he got into the bathroom. I phased through the door to catch him and there were about thirty guys standing in the bathroom. He held up his catch to boast about how he stole my underwear but then it turns out that he only stole my pajama bottoms-"

"Who wears pajamas with ducks on them?" John suddenly wondered, interupting her. She glared at him.

"I do. They're comfy."

John just snorted in an unattractive manner and Storm glared at him, then looked back to Kitty, who went on with the story.

"So, after being embarrassed in front of all his friends because he stole the wrong thing, he said he'd get me back. So today he came to my Earth Sciences class, where I was _teaching. _I didn't know it was him so I opened the door and then the next thing you know I'm soaked to the bone and John is smiling and whistling like he didn't do anything wrong at all!"

She left out the part where he'd said she'd probably win a wet T-shirt contest for obvious reasons.

"The bell rang a second later and I kind of, sort of, snapped and tackled him down. I didn't remember that the cafeteria was right below my classroom so we kind of just ended up falling on top of the teacher's lunch table. From there it was mostly me trying to claw his eyes out, him trying to burn me to a crisp, Hank trying to break it up, and Logan watching in amusement whilst smoking a cigar in a no-smoking building until you came along and broke it apart and dragged us here to face what is undoubtedly going to be the worst punishment I've ever received," Kitty finished, raising her eyebrows and looking at the Professor, who smiled at her and gave a small laugh. Storm turned to John with her hands on her hips.

"And what do you have to say for yourself?"

"All I have to add to that is that I mentioned that Kitty would probably win a wet T-shirt contest."

If Kitty didn't sue for sexual harassment, it'd be a miracle.


	3. Make Out Kids

**[It All Started With Duck Pajamas...]**

John watched her, well, more like glared at her, as he sat at his new acquired detention desk. She glared back, her eyes slightly narrowed with a passionate hate fueling them. He had to admit, if he actually liked her, the glare probably would have hurt. 'Oomph' was the word that came to mind when he thought about her glare.

She sat across from him on her desk, legs crossed to be ladylike. Her hair was down and her glasses were on because she lost one of her contacts in their little fight on the lunch table, and if he was going to say anything perverted, he was going to say it only to himself.

Sexy Librarian. That was as far as he was letting his mind go right now considering the circumstances. Sex should be the last thing on his mind, honestly, especially when said sexual fantasy involved the girl who was glaring at him with a hate fueled by an energy only comparable to two billion super-novas.

"I hate you," she suddenly announced, glare intensifying while he roughly shoved sexual thoughts from his mind. Despite this, John smirked. He could easily see her making younger boys cry. It was funny, really, because she'd been so sweet when he left, not that he'd known her that well. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that something had happened that summer that made the wildcat in good little Kitty come out to play.

"I love you, too, Kitten," he said, cracking an angry sort of smile because his mind was not stopping with the onslaught of really unhelpful but really hot images involving Kitty, glasses, and a desk.

They'd been glaring at each other for more than an hour, and it was impressive, she admitted, that John could actually hold his ground this long, and without saying anything perverted. After all, he was, if she was going to think like Jubilee, a good-for-nothing, backstabbing, betraying, cowardly, perverse asshole. Then again, before two days ago, Kitty didn't really have an opinion on John Allerdyce.

But she was forming one oh-so fast, and it was not a good opinion whatsoever.

Within the past forty-eight hours, John had managed an attempt to steal her underwear and show it to the entire male population of the school, and make her shirt see-through whilst she was teaching and then he had the freaking nerve to compliment her about said see-through shirt and then she had tackled him to the floor below and then all the male teachers had seen her see-through shirt and so she clawed at him from the inside out and now they were in detention, sitting here and glaring at each other with absolutely nothing better to do.

She was getting him back, oh yes she was, and her revenge was never the pretty kind.

* * *

Four more hours of detention passed before he fell asleep. She had stopped staring at him about three hours ago, and now was her chance at revenge. She padded over to him, in phasing form to not making noise, and stuck her hand in his leg, phasing through the flesh and bone. She cringed. She would never really get used to the feeling of phasing through people. It felt so... personal, in this really odd sort of sense. She receded her hand and grabbed onto what she'd been looking for: his lighter. She phased it through the fabric of his jeans and smirked, sticking it in her back pocket. Then, she walked over to the door and stuck her head out, looking both ways. It was all clear. She phased through the door and then bolted up the stairs as silently as she could, phasing through a few un-expecting students' rooms before she reached her own.

Rogue was sleeping, mumbling in her pretty Southern drawl in her sleep about Logan wanting to gut the man who'd stolen the girl's heart. Kitty gave a small smile. Sounded like something Logan would want to do. Logan might have been a loner, to some degree, because he was always coming and going and never really staying put at Xavier's for more than a couple of weeks at a time, but he was loved at the school. A teacher when he was around, and a father figure to all the youngsters who knew him. Kitty's face suddenly hardened, a small smile replaced by a wicked glare at the wall. He was probably the only trustworthy fatherly figure she had in her life anymore. Her real father had distanced himself once her mutation had developed some years ago in her pre-teen years, and she was never really home much after that; Xavier's became her new home, the one she knew and loved. But her father had been her father nonetheless, the man who'd raised her and the man who claimed to love her with all of his heart.

He had claimed. He had promised. He had _lied_.

Kitty fought back the tears coming to her eyes and sat down on her bed, taking John's lighter out from her pants' pocket before she flicked it open, watching the steadily burning flame. She knew how much he loved this lighter. He'd spaz once he figured out that she'd taken it. He'd probably burn the whole school down just looking for it. Kitty studied it. It was a nice one, not the cheap plastic ones you buy in packs of four when you're in line at the gas station. Metallic silver base coat with black, red, and white to make it look like a shark's mouth. She narrowed her eyes at it. For some reason, the whole shark concept didn't seem very much like John at all. Then again, she didn't know him that well, and then again still, on the other hand, the shark concept did sort of suit him, in a very odd sort of way. He attacked at what seemed to be random, but what was obviously planned out in his head before hand. He was sneaky, calculating, and didn't go for a quick kill, but rather for a quick hit to injure the target before actually destroying it.

Kitty shook her head and laughed at herself. Had she seriously just laid on her bed for a full ten minutes, now that she knew what time it was by looking at her alarm clock, and compared John to the animal on his lighter?

Yes. Yes, she had. Oh Lord, she needed a therapist.

"KITTEN!" a voice roared from down the hallway. Rogue bolted awake and looked around wildly, taking off her gloves as she got ready to defend her castle, which, in reality, was a dorm room. Kitty looked at the lighter again and smirked, stuffing it down the front of her shirt and into her bra where he wouldn't notice it. Hopefully. She chose the wrong day to borrow Jubilee's shirt. They were always pretty low-cut.

Rogue gaped at her. "Oh mah Gawd, you did not take John's lighta!"

"I did," Kitty said without a hint of remorse, shame, or dissatisfaction whatsoever. Rogue shook her head as she tugged on her combat boots.

"Stupid, stupid girl. And now Ah'm gonna havta kick his ass to the River and back just to save ya pretty lil ass," Rogue moaned, shaking her head as Kitty mused upon the fact that Rogue's accent was worst when she just woke up to a bad situation. Someone started to pound on their door, and it didn't take a genius to know who it was.

"KITTEN! I'm going _to absofuckinglutely murder _you!" he hollered, fists pounding on the doors. Kitty opened the door and John stumbled in, having not expected her to even have the guts to answer the door.

"Go for it, asshole, I'd like to see you try," she challenged, glaring up at his looming lean and muscular build, arms crossed just under her chest as she gave him a glare colder than Chicago with the wind chill factor in January. He glared back for a moment, obviously absolutely raging and wanting nothing more than to strangle her pretty, pale neck, but then his gaze dropped lower, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"Why the fuck is my lighter in your shirt?" he demanded, and Kitty looked down. Sure enough, she hadn't hid it well enough. She could see it peaking out from the hot pink lace of her bra and the black and white striped cotton-blend of the shirt, which had shifted when she practically threw the door open to challenge him to a death match that was now, as if it would have before, going to end in absolute catastrophe.

Kitty thought up something quick. Thank God she was good at thinking on her feet. "Because I knew it was the one place you wouldn't have the guts to go at."

"Really, Kitten?" John smirked, leaning down over her so he could smirk in her face in such a smug way that she wanted nothing more than to just reach her hand into body through his rock hard abs, grab his intestines, and rip them out.

"Really," she said, getting up in his face, too, standing on her toes to become taller. He smirked.

"Really?" His breath smelled like cinnamon gum. His shirt smelled like lighter fluid. His face smelled like aftershave.

"Really." Her breath smelled like sugar. Her shirt smelled like flowers, but with something sharp and thorny, too. Her face smelled like some kind of expensive make-up.

Rogue just stood there, dazed at what was happening right before her eyes.

John swooped in, without even giving her a chance to blink, his lips planted on hers in half a second. Thrown off completely, Kitty did nothing but stare wide-eyed at the spot he'd missed shaving that morning, by his jawline. He licked her lips, but her mouth was already open in a state of shock, so he went right on in like he had every right to, tongue skating over the roof of her mouth in a way that made her shiver and his ego boost to the moon. She was kissing back, he noted, though whether she realized it or not he didn't know. His hand skimmed up her stomach, danced over the flesh of her chest and, with a twist of his fingers, dislodged his lighter from her bra. He pulled away as soon as the job was done, only stopping slightly to nip her bottom lip with a possessive kind of nature that had both of them confused as he faced her again and smirked.

"Kitten, you can come back to earth now," he said smugly. She came out of her shock that second, glared at him, her fists balled up at her sides. Rogue, who was also just coming out of shock, was ready to launch into attack at any given second, but Kitty, bless her petite heart, beat her to it.

BAM.

"Mother-fucker!" John swore, holding his jaw where Kitty's fist had snapped his head to the right with the force of her (impressive) left hook.

"Get. Out." She was seething, eyes burning with hate as she stormed towards him, hips swaying in absolute rage.

As he all but skipped from the room, his ego bigger than the solar system as he pretty much ran from the seething girl close on his tail, he had to admit it.

He'd never seen anything sexier than Kitty when she was mad.


	4. The Truth Hits Everybody

**[It All Started With Duck Pajamas...]**

School, John found, was gradually getting harder and harder to concentrate on as the week progressed.

He was sitting in the commons, watching with little enthusiasm as Blink kicked Bobby's ass at Slap Jack. It had been a week since he'd last talked to Kitten, and, God Damn It All, it was driving him absolutely insane. Every time he saw her in the hall, he fought the memory of the kiss to the back of his mind, though it was a fight he usually lost. And every time she wore that damned shirt, which had only been once since that day, it drove him to the point of insanity. He made a mental note to burn it once he got it off of her, because for some reason he just couldn't stand to see her in it without wanting it off. Stupid low cut, sexy-as-hell, thin strapped shirt.

He almost gave an audible groan of frustration as the card game switched to Black Jack and more people joined in. He flicked his lighter open and closed, but that only made his thoughts drift back to her. Fuck. Even _his_ freaking _lighter_reminded him of her. One whole week of not talking to her, of not making contact with her, of her ignoring him. He shoved his lighter viciously into the back pocket of his jeans and all but threw himself off the couch and into the rain outside for a desperately needed rain-soaked walk.

This... whatever, he had with Kitten was a game. He knew it. She knew it. Anyone else who knew about it, knew it. Emotions didn't need to be involved in this at all, especially ones that were linked to wanting her. Good God, he'd known the girl for what? Two weeks? He growled and tugged at his auburn hair. Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

--

She walked in the rain, mascara slightly smudged under her eyes even though it was supposed to be waterproof. The dark green tee-shirt she wore was soaked through completely, black sports bra visible. Her jeans were drenched, weighing her down. Her worn down Etnies were squelching in a way that would have made her mother cringe. Her hair was a disaster; she didn't need a mirror to know that one.

All in all, her appearence was the personification of hell itself, but at that exact moment, she didn't happen to care.

She'd gotten a letter from her father that morning. The return address had been Santa Monica, California. No address, no zip code, just the city and the state. The envelope had smelled like a perfume that didn't belong to her mother. The letter was on lavender colored paper that obviously belonged to the woman he ran off with, and his handwriting was still the scribbly, messy loops it had been since she'd been able to read it. It said that he missed her, and that he'd gotten promoted to sheriff where he was working. He said that he hoped that she was having a good time at school and that he hoped she wasn't angry at him.

After reading it, she had crumple the paper, ripped it into tiny pieces, and then set those pieces on fire before putting the ashes in a little black box. She filled the box with rocks, duct-taped it shut, and drove out to lake Ontario, an hour's drive. When she got there, she winged the box into the lake as hard as she could and prayed that it stayed at the bottom of the great lake for all eternity, along with whatever respect, love, or care she had ever felt towards the man who dared call himself her father.

She wiped tears from her eyes as she prowled Xavier's grounds. Her father was a cheat. Her father was a liar. He hadn't always been that way. There'd been a time when he loved her and took her out for ice cream and bought her presents just because he loved to spoil his little princess. Even though she had a little sister, her father openly admitted to her that he loved her the most. He taught her to fix motorcycles, do algebra, and to study hard. He used to do science experiments with her when she didn't understand what they were learning in class. He used to play catch with her and he took her to the batting range to teach her how to use a baseball bat as a weapon, in case she ever needed it (to this day, she still had a baseball bat next to her bed that she never used).

When she became a mutant and her mother became distant, her father had only slipped away slightly for a few months, before he got used to it. He thought her mutation was the coolest thing in the entire world; he'd told her so. He told her that she'd be an amazing cop, because she could phase right through bullets. Her life would never be in danger in the way his was.

Granted, her life was in danger when she worked missions, but she never told her father that she got into the X-men, never told him that she fought at Alcatraz. He didn't need to know that his daughter had helped save the world. It was too much for her to wrap her head around, and she would never talk to her father ever again, anyways. He'd left her mother and little sister for some twenty-something blond in Santa Monica. He'd left his pride, his home, his family, his love, his everything, when he left the house that day, the second day she was home that summer.

But most importantly, he'd left her.

She gave a shriek of frustration, a cry of anguish, as she punched the closest thing to her, which happened to be a tree. Tears stung her eyes as she felt her bones snap. Broken fingers. Lovely. She held her fingers to her, tears of anger, sadness, and pain falling from her eyes, as she sat down on the ground, leaning against the tree. She hit the back of her head on the rough bark, and winced as it scraped at her scalp. But for once, she didn't mind the pain so much. When that thought crossed her mind, she idly wondered if she was slowly becoming a subconscious masochist due to her sudden whirlwind depression.

Kitty let out a laugh. God, she was starting to sound like a shrink. Listen to the voice in her head. Pathetic. She ground her teeth, clenching her jaw as she stared up at the storming sky that gave a rumble of thunder as a response to her death-like glare. A flash of lightening flew through the sky. Storm must have been having a bad day if she wasn't keep the possible threat of lightening strikes at bay. Kitty didn't mind though. Maybe getting struck by lightening wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. Could she phase through lightening? It was pure electrical current, so probably not. Electrical currents made her atoms and molecules all confused, and it stung like hell. She remembered her first run in with phasing through electrical fences when she was running away from her home the day her father left. She had made it through, but her phase-form didn't wear off when she told it to, and she had an insane buzz, her heart rate messed up and her brain throbbing.

She looked back up to the sky as a lightening bolt hit the ground a mile or two away. That was way more powerful than an electric fence. She wouldn't risk it.

She stood up and dusted off her jeans even though they were soaking and the gesture didn't do a thing. She shivered, the coldness of the rain soaking her clothes suddenly violently obvious. She looked around, and spotted him staring at her a couple of yards away.

Had he seen her punch the tree? Had he seen her cry? Had he heard her laugh at herself?

"Do you stalk me or something?" she spat, glaring at him as his thoughts suddenly came back to earth. She was soaked to the bone, dark hair in a messy, dripping bun, slight mascara smears just under her eyes. Her fingers, which she was holding, were bloody and bent at an odd angle. John knew that kind of injury, having punched quite a few hard, unbreakable things himself. Broken fingers. He knew they hurt like hell. He tried to ignore the fact that he could see her bra as he walked closer to her, his eyes narrowed slightly against the downpour of rain that was suddenly coming down in several-ton buckets.

"You can make whatever you want of it," he told her, "but you should get inside. Those fingers aren't going to magically heal by themselves."

"Oh, so now you care about me?" she asked, laughing in a way that gave him the hint that she didn't honestly think it was funny.

"No, he replied, though something in the back of his mind told him different. He glared at her. "I just don't want to hear you bitch about them later. And you're going to get sick if you stay out any longer."

"Okay, _mother_," she said sarcastically, walking past him. He followed, intent on dragging her to the infirmary if it was necessary. He glared at her back. Why the hell did he care about her well-being in the first place.

Damn, stupid concious. Damn stupid, girl. Dam, stupid hormones.

Fuck his life.

--

He waited in the hallway as she went to change clothes. Something in the hallway smelled off, like bourbon, cinnamon, sugar, flowers, and the kind of smell that guys just always have. A mix of cologne and perfume. When he figured out that it was coming from Kitty's room, he made a move to speak up, but she had already phased through the door. Three seconds later, there was a thud, a gasp, and a French swear on the other side of Kitty's door. Two seconds after that, Kitty ran through the door, eyes and mouth three perfect circles of horror and/or shock. She was still dripping wet, her appearance unchanged other than the priceless expression on her face. He smirked.

"What's the matter, Kitten, never walked in on someone while they're taking care of bussiness?" he taunted. She threw him a glare before shivering, fighting off the instinct to let her teeth clatter.

"Shut up," she retorted. Honestly, it had been her first time walking in on people doing... _that_, and the fact that it was her best friend and that new Cajun only made it all worse. John smirked before studying her a minute. He looked at her drenched attire and shivering form before he sighed. Damn his sympathy to hell, specifically the sympathy he held for her.

"Come on, I'll lend you some clothes," he said grumpily, walking towards his own room, which was down the hallway and to the left. She followed, trying to fight of the fact that she was actually eager to see what his room looked like. Something in the back of her mind wondered why he was being remotely nice to her, but she shook it off, thankful for the kindness after such a shitty, emotionally draining day.

She walked next to him, feeling awkward if she walked in front of him but also awkward if she lagged behind, like some lost puppy. He unlocked his door and slid inside; she followed, shutting the door behind her before she studied his abode.

It was obvious that he shared it with Bobby, and it wasn't hard to see who's side of the room was who's. One side of the room had a Coldplay poster, a few pictures of Bobby and Rogue when they were dating, a few pictures of Bobby with his friends, a few hockey trophies. The sheets were dark flannel, and the blanket was a dark blue duvet that could do with a cycle through the washer and dryer. A pair of boxers lied forgotten at the foot of the bed, an a T-shirt was slung over the headboard. A Dave Matthew's band CD skipped in the CD player. John gave it a good 'thawk' with his hand, and it turned off, the music dying off.

The other side of the room so obviously belonged to John, it was crazy. The sheets were black, along with the blanket covering it. A few metal band posters, like Disturbed, Metallica, and Killswitch Engage littered the walls. No photos decorated his walls. Dark t-shirts, white socks, and a few pairs of jeans littered the floors. An ipod charged in the wall, and a pack of cigarettes sat on his bedside table, near to the window.

"You smoke?" she asked. She'd thought she smelled it on him on the way here, but didn't know for sure. He grunted.

"Family habit," he explained shortly, before throwing her a dark T-shirt and a pair of jeans that he used to wear back before he left Xavier's (he didn't know why he still had them, they'd been too small for years). She ducked into his bathroom to change (much to his secret disappointment), so he laid down on his bed, unlacing his boots and kicking them off. He heard her move around in the small room, the sound of wet jeans hitting the tile floor after squelching sneakers were removed, along with soaked socks that slapped the floor. He forced him mind away from the image of Kitty naked in his bathroom, willing himself to stare at the ceiling and think of things that made him pleasantly angry, like Dr. Suess, Spongebob Squarepants, and Hannah Montana. He heard the tap running and guessed that she was washing the mascara from her face. The rustle of clothes caught his ears a second later, and then she opened the door.

She liked to think that she was light-headed because she hadn't eaten anything, but honestly, she was used to that, so she knew that it was the way his shirt smelled absolutely amazing and how good it looked on her. She wasn't going to lie to herself when she had looked in the mirror: in his shirt, she looked damn sexy, at least sexier than she ever thought she looked in any of her clothes. His jeans fit like a glove, the perfect fit around her hips, and a little too long. They were obviously too small for him, knowing how tall he was. For a second, she let herself wonder what would happen if she just kept them before she shoved the thought out of her mind. She had given herself another once over before she rolled up the sleeves of the T-shirt a tad. Perfect. She should have tried the boyfriend look awhile ago.

"Thanks," she said quietly as he stared at her from his bed. Damn, she looked amazing in that Metallica T-shirt. And he might as well just let her keep the jeans; they looked better on her than they ever did on him. Her feet were bare, and she held her clothes and shoes in her right hand, a dripping mass of fabric. He desperately tried to ignore the fact that he saw her bra in said mass of fabric.

"You're welcome," he mumbled, flustered now. She stood there silently for a second before turning and leaving, locking the door behind her as it clicked gently closed. Her scent lingered in the air, and John sighed, tugging at his hair. First, he couldn't stop thinking about the kiss. Now, he was being nice to her and liking how she looked in his clothes.

Fuck his life.


End file.
